I wonder if more wouldn’t be achieved by not publishing the name of these sociopaths in the press. It seems being noticed holds more importance than the lives they take. It’s the copycats way of going out bigger than the muderer before them. I think it was NBC Nightly News that I saw last night talking about historical mass shootings going back to the 60s. They were giving the names of the perpetrators and the kill rankings.

Sociopath: A person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience.

Asperger’s syndrome: A developmental disorder related to autism and characterized by higher than average intellectual ability coupled with impaired social skills and restrictive, repetitive patterns of interest and activities.

Asperger’s syndrome has nothing to do with a “lack of conscience.” This was a tragic event with a mental disorder at its core.

The shooter satisfied himself. What he did was premeditated and he carried out his plan. We are disturbed, he was not. He was profoundly satisfied with his work and having carried out his slaughter, he crucified himself the easy way with a bullet to his head.

However, all across the country, people are convinced that a gun walked into that school and started shooting. They need that fantasy, because they deny the existence of evil.

If you admit the existence of evil, then you are open to the possibility of great goodness which flows from outside of our selves and our state and our community organizers.

That holds Progressives in chains. They dare not admit a force greater than their own perfectible minds and reason.

What is evil is the way the media culture in our country turns mass murderers into celebrities; sending a clear message to the next disturbed, pinky-dick loser “If you take out a bunch of people when you off yourself, you’ll be famous.”

Already we’re hearing, from the talking heads, a lot of agonizing over why the killer did this. Why, why why?

I don’t care why he did it. He did it, and people are dead. The fact that he had to know a lot of people would be longing, right now, to hold him on their laps and give him warm milk and cookies may have had a lot to do with why he did it in the first place.

And as for Westboro Baptist Church, the same psychology holds. Every time those cockroaches in human form do anything, people wonder “Why, why, why?”

Again, I don’t care. I think we, as a society, need to ask why we keep making people like that famous. What accounts for our fascination with the sick, the demented and the weird?

They may not all crawl back into the sewer when we stop noticing them. But let’s just mourn the victims and call what was done to them what it is. Evil works for me.

“However, all across the country, people are convinced that a gun walked into that school and started shooting. They need that fantasy, because they deny the existence of evil.”

“Guns don’t kill people – people do. By the same token, planes don’t kill people – people flying them into buildings do. And yet, I recall that we immediately and decisively worked to keep deranged people from gaining possession of planes when a handful of those people used them as tools of mass murder; indeed, we made it much more difficult for the overwhelming majority of peaceful, law-abiding citizens to board a plane.”

Just wanted to note in response to “passing” that we do have laws that make obtaining a gun difficult…and they worked, reports are that Lanza tried to purchase a gun, but was denied a license. He did what all criminals do…he stole them (from his mother).

School and mall shootings are a recent phenomenon…I suspect as a result of the MSM and the outright-pornography of the 24-hr cable-outlets make make these evil people world-famous. Otherwise why do it? It’s not the guns, or even the mental illness or “evil”…it’s the fame and notoriety that lives-on after.

Herostrautus purposely burned the Artemision of Ephesus in 356BC to be remembered through-out history. His name was declared Damnatio memoriae, and to speak it was punishable by death. We and the Media should do the same, condemn their names and their vile acts to civil-oblivion, not to be spoken-of.

It’s not the availability of guns…it’s the fame and notoriety.“Yimach shmo ve-zichro.” ימח שמו וזכרו

Through hearing about the tragedies in Tucson and Aurora I have accepted the fact that we may never know why a tragedy occurred. We will never truly know what the perpetrator was thinking, or why they chose to commit the evil act. The tragedy on Friday does not make me feel any different about this idea. Oddly enough, I actually find comfort in this notion.

I hold the belief that things occur for a reason, and that a certain reason may be well beyond human comprehension. It is unfortunate that people are so quick to point fingers, or purport solutions well before all the facts have come in. When fingers are pointed prematurely, the focus of a tragedy is shifted from the victims, who should be of our main concern, and creates some sort of hysteria that all too conveniently serves some agenda. That itself adds to the tragedy.

By the same token, planes don’t kill people – people flying them into buildings do. And yet, I recall that we immediately and decisively worked to keep deranged people from gaining possession of planes when a handful of those people used them as tools of mass murder; indeed, we made it much more difficult for the overwhelming majority of peaceful, law-abiding citizens to board a plane.

Which is a perfect example of a massive overreaction to a situation that will likely never happen again. As well as the overarching reason I have stopped flying commercially until the silliness and insanity stops. (And, no, I am not holding my breath that it will do so anytime soon.)

What’s worse is that when the question is asked as to what people think about ever-increasing intrusions and look-askance surveillance, the response by a significant number of people is “Oh well, if that’s what it takes to keep us safe…” as if any safety is gained by treating every grandmother as if she’s smuggling a mini-pistol in her vagina. When the time comes that average airline passengers are treated like prisoners in convict transport (eg, Con Air, I often wonder if those responding in such manner will continue to make that statement.

5. Westboro Baptist is on the way to CT to celebrate. Need to get the word out.

And we would want to do that why, exactly?

Because the only thing worse than a mass murderer who commits suicide are publicity-seeking attention whore nutjobs who don’t have the courage to also off themselves but instead perpetuate their own form of lunatic narcissism in public through successive generations.

Heliotrope, to compare the final act of this filthy creature, ventilating himself with the weapon he stole to committ his obscenity, to Christ’s agony on the cross is IMO a blasphemy.

I can get why you chose the word, and I’m certainly not angry at you for using it, but there is no equivalence between the two acts. The fewer parallels that are drawn between the selfish escape from earthly reckoning of that f**** subhuman scumbucket and the redeeming sacrifice (inasmuch as you choose to have true faith in it) of Christ on the Cross, the better.

There are two more groups that deserve condemnation. The first is the anti-gun nuts who want to punish the innocent along with the guilty. The second, if other posts are to be believed, is Westboro, who have drifted about as far from Christ’s basic message as it is possible to get. Their dedication to the Old Testament is such that they should seriously consider conversion to Orthodox Judaism (not that decent Jews would want them polluting their religion either, but you get my drift).

I take your point and I wish I had been more careful to explain why I used that word. My understanding is that this kid may have gone into the Goth world. I find that world very strange and troubling. For your information, I am directing you to some jewelry that helps Goths “express” themselves which ranges from pentagrams to upside down crosses to crucified skeletons.

Please accept my assurance that I did not mean to liken him to Christ. Over the centuries, heretics, witches and blasphemers were chained to crosses and buried to the upper torso in wood and straw and set afire. Although “burning at the stake” did not have a rigid set of protocols, the use of the cross beam was not unusual. In some cases, we know that the person was chained upside-down by the ankles.

We have many Goths who are acting out and are very sweet and king people. We also have that element who are sick people who live in a dark place. I consider this kid, Goth or not, to be one of those “free will” people (like you and me) who dedicated himself to the work of Satan and saw himself as a Dark Knight Templar for evil. Just my opinion.

That Christ died for our sins and redemption is a strong guiding principle in my life. But, crucifixion was not limited to Christ and it did not end with him, either.

I don’t particularly like children (little brats) but this event is particularly appalling – I cannot begin to grasp the pain felt by these families – little kids looking forward to Christmas and their parents enjoying their kids – and now… Presents never to be opened, beds that will not be slept in, kisses and hugs lost forever. Unimaginable.

I guess I am a bit of a social-con scold. I went to grade school the sixties and there were no guards, no locked doors, and no “lock down” procedures. I never saw a kid arrested and don’t recall ever seeing police. We feared our parents and the very butch gym teacher, Miss so-and-so with the scary paddle with holes rumored to make the pain worse.

Our society is sick. The little bodies were still warm when that a-hole, Michael Bloomberg, seized the opportunity to shill for gun control (no doubt keeping his armed security). Some on the left exulted in the tragedy – not even the decency to put a sock in it for at least a day or two.

As Dan points out, there has always been evil. It’s our choice how we deal with it.

Taking a point from SoCalRobert’s comments about elementary school back when…….. My school in the late 40′s and early 50′s was built in the 1850′s and every ground floor classroom had doors to the outside. Every kid had a mom and dad or a father who died in WWII. I knew one kid who did not have a dad and no explanation of why. Everyone thought that was very strange. No one knew anything about “single mothers” or even divorce.

Walking home from school (no busses and we went home for lunch) was under the watchful eyes of a million old biddies who would call ahead to your mother if you didn’t have your coat buttoned up.

The disintegration of the family is a pitiful shame. Even as bad is the disintegration of the school and the neighborhood. I knew every family in every house for 1/2 mile in every direction of my house.

Now we have a weakened influence of the church, schools that are infected with social engineering, places where people live, but without real neighbors and when something goes haywire we scream for government and listen to talking heads babble both endlessly and even senselessly.

The good news is that homeschooling is recreating a wonderful community of people which very much resembles what I knew as a child.

The second amendment wasn’t created with hunters and sports shooters in mind. The second amendment was created so that citizens might have a defense against their gubmint going rogue and killing them for not buckling under to it’s tyranny.

SoCalRobert —- For the last forty years, we have restructured society along the lines progressives demanded: Massive welfare programs, mainstreaming the mentally ill into society, unfiltered sex and violence in media in the name of “artistic expression,” an abandonment of discipline in schools in favor of “self-esteem,” making schools into Christianity-free zones because “Christian morality is oppressive” and “You don’t need God to be good.”

All of this was supposed to result in a peaceful society of hugs and rainbows. Hasn’t worked out that way, has it?

Ever notice that the unvarying Progressive Fascist response to these events is to take away the rights of law-abiding people?

No.

And if the shooter had been caught alive, these same people would have opposed the death penalty for him and insisted he be given voting rights.

That is so f–ked up.

Your first comment regarding 20 dead children is solely to cast aspersions about people with whom you have a political disagreement. Broad brush accusations that have little or no basis in reality, no less.

Ever notice that the unvarying paranoid delusional response to tragedies like this is to attack people who disagree with your politics? You’re more concerned – obsessed, really – with an idea, an abstract political idea, than the REAL murder of 27 people, 20 of them _children_. THAT is f-ked up.

Peej – You managed to overlook the fact that comment #8 is, not explicitly but in implication or intent, a leftie’s call for gun control in response to this shooting. Which makes your comment wrong (since V’s comment does describe a real behavior of lefties). Minor but furthermore, you also overlook that V’s comment to which you respond is his *second* here (not first).

But I’d actually like to respond to some other leftie comments in this thread.

There’s no question that the shootings in CT are an evil. The shooter, mentally ill or not, made an evil choice. No question about that. None. And yet, a leftie troll opened bhere with comments whose thrust (if you have the patience to read and detect any) is that Dan should not have employed the word ‘evil’. Typical.

VS: Is, or is not, the random shooting of children an evil? Did, or did not, Adam Lanza make an evil choice? Regardless of the validity of the excuses (i.e. the possibility that the perpetrator might not be mentally competent and meaningfully able to choose), can you, or can you not, allow an evil to be named as evil, before you seek to excuse it?

“I am highlighting here the leftie’s extreme aversion to the use of moral language, even in the most appropriate circumstances.”

“Evil, in a large sense, may be described as the sum of the opposition, which experience shows to exist in the universe, to the desires and needs of individuals; whence arises, among humans beings at least, the sufferings in which life abounds. Thus evil, from the point of view of human welfare, is what ought not to exist. … With regard to the nature of evil, it should be observed that evil is of three kinds — physical, moral, and metaphysical.”

ILC – I think Mona’s point is that there are people with serious mental illness (personality disorder – whatever) for whom custodial care is the only sane option. As VtK notes, we’ve spent generations “mainstreaming” mentally ill people into the “community” (ever notice that the more we use the word “community”, the less community we have?).

The details of whats-his-name’s (the shooter) life will come out – until then, we can’t know whether he was simply an odd duck that went off the deep end or someone with a serious illness who should have been confined.

We’re all odd in our own ways but the percentage of us so odd as to even contemplate the massacre innocents is, fortunately, infinitesimally small. I think Jonah Goldberg has used the term “crooked timber” to describe humanity. In my view, there lies the difference between “liberals” and “conservatives”.

Conservatives recognize man’s fallibility as a fact of life and work to structure civilization to direct (and confine, as needed) man’s energies into constructive pursuits mainly through custom, traditions, and stigma (hence helio’s observation that “single motherhood” used to be fairly rare). Liberals believe that human beings are perfectable given just one more law or program designed to “correct” our deficiencies (e.g. when little boys act like little boys, we give them Ritalin; when little girls want to do little girl things, we make them play little boy games; when a student has an “incorrect” opinion, we don’t disagree, we impose speech codes … &c).

Obviously the shooter was highly disturbed and was seriously mentally ill. He was evil. Any attempt to try to excuse this behaviour because of his “mental illness” can also be thought of as putting other people with “mental illness” into the same category as him.

And I can’t imagine why anyone would forgive him (not that that is necessarily what happened). That seems to me like an insult to the victims.

That is, he was obviously mentally ill, but he was also evil (which is probably a mental illness in itself). The evil is why he did this, not the mental illness that wasn’t repsonsible for the evil (if he had one).

Progressives largely have trouble with the concept of free will, because they rely on victims and social engineering and state control to manage and manipulate the sheeple. Everything which begins in mystery ends at the hands of Progressives as being manipulated and micromanaged by the state.

Within the Judeo-Christain ethic, God created man and laid down the moral law which man is commanded to follow and obey. Within the Christian religion, a fallen man can redeem himself by grace.

Now, for many, many Progressives, any reference or reliance upon religious ethic or belief in grace is anathema and to be driven, so much as possible, from the state and even the public square.

Knowing this is important, because Progressives dare not believe in evil, because to do so is a tacit admission of free will and the complications it brings to their reliance on moral relativism and their fascination with manipulating standards through situation ethics.

Progressives, largely, do not adhere to a moral code. For them, morality is relative and intuitive. When one’s principles are so loosely anchored, how can the same person have any sense of evil and redemption? For Progressives, redemption is a state activity that is based on feelings and group think. These people, at heart, are basically amoral, in the sense that right and wrong are defined politically and subject to majoritarian approval or disapproval. They are adherents of political correctness.

I don’t believe we can exempt people from the human race because they suffer from a mental or emotional illness. That is absurd. If we can’t expect the same basic level of moral responsibility from them, we might as well do what they did in the Middle Ages, and banish them all — for the protection of everyone else — to an Isle of the Dead. Or make them wear caps with bells on them so we know when to run away.

Those certainly sound like inhumane options. But ask the victims of the latest tragedy how humane the option is we choose instead.

Typically (not always), I don’t read more than the first or second PB comments. If they don’t make a point directly, I know the rest probably won’t.

Progressives dare not believe in evil, because to do so is a tacit admission of free will and the complications it brings to their reliance on moral relativism and their fascination with manipulating standards through situation ethics.

Yes. But I did misspeak earlier (and, time to correct it). I had correctly flagged VS’ aversion to using moral language here. But there are situations where I believe that he maybe, and other leftists definitely, would use moral language: as a tactic in a political situation where they could rip at conservatives. We’ve seen them use the language, cynically but with gusto nonetheless. So maybe the leftist’s aversion is not to ever using the language, but rather to granting the underlying concepts.

Guns are not the problem here, it is the fact that our nation has an inadequate safety net for the mentally ill.

Back in the 80′s when they shut down all the mental health facilities (and to some degree closing many of them did need to be closed and some people were institutionalized who shouldn’t have been) we sent the mentally ill into the communities with no safety net.

Families who are living with mentally ill children don’t have anywhere to turn-especially if the child is an adult. Parents can’t make kids see a doctor or take meds or participate in a treatment plan. It is next to impossible to get somebody committed and there isn’t any kind of group home for the mentally ill.

Instead of discussions about gun bans, we need to have discussions on how to provide a real safety net to the mentally ill.

These people, at heart, are basically amoral, in the sense that right and wrong are defined politically and subject to majoritarian approval or disapproval. They are adherents of political correctness.

I know some who don’t mean to be that way (they’re just confused/conflicted). But the ones who do mean to be that way, I call “creeps”.

If they ever have a national discussion on violence, three persons who should be part of the discussion will not be invited; a priest or bishop, a minister and a rabbi. Political correctness has allowed moral values to be pushed aside so that in the name of free speech, censorship no longer is applied to movies, televison programs, and video games. We, as a society, have become insensitized. Criminal have more rights then victims. Situations like Newtown and Aurora awaken a spark of sensitivity to horror.

I remember when in public school, the Bible was read, usuually the Creation Story Exodus, and Psalms. The only guns I ever saw was in high school and they water pistols. Letting off steam from winter in early spring we had a few days when we had fights on the school bus and usually the nerd got was the victim, getting shots of water ar his crotch so he would look like he control himself. At that school nurses were reluctant to dispense an aspiran. Todays kids are given drugs as meds by the school nurse.

The knee jerk reaction is gun control. I would be willing to have my Second Amendment rights abridged ONLY if the liberals will agree to have their First Amendment rights abridged.

Guns are not the problem here, it is the fact that our nation has an inadequate safety net for the mentally ill.

Let the free market sort out mental illness and build more prisons. Why should government step in and just tax us for programs that will just be inept and be ultimately more harmful. We live in a society where a child’s self-esteem takes precedence at a cost to everything else, thanks to the morally bankrupt left. The fruits of Bad Parenting are NOT MY PROBLEM. There was evil in Connecticut on Friday. Period.

Mental health problems and being evil are entirely different subjects. That a few people with mental health problems are evil is not surprising; it is a statistical certainty.

Some people want everything in human nature to be measured out by the teaspoon and “explained” by science. These people have to have an explanation that is more “scientific” than something amorphous, to them, called evil. That is to say, they demand proof that evil “exists.”

Science is amoral. That is not a charge of deficiency. It is supposed to be amoral. That is not so say that things done in the name of science can not be morally right or wrong. I would offer partial birth abortion as an example. Or having the newborn that slips out during partial birth abortion “set aside” to die of neglect as another example. That is pure evil. The “first do no harm” doctor is walking on thin air to attempt to justify his/her decision to lay aside his own skills for healing when he ignores the new life.

Put in those terms, one can readily understand why Progressives are so bound and determined to ignore morality, free will and evil. They must. They have nothing but “common sense” as they dictate it through the force of politically correctness at the hands of government which can dole out punishment to reform the politically incorrect.

The knee jerk reaction is gun control. I would be willing to have my Second Amendment rights abridged ONLY if the liberals will agree to have their First Amendment rights abridged.

NO DEAL……….No one would agree to eliminating the Bill of Rights, except progressives.

The elimination of the 2nd Amendment would be a society in which only borderline psychotic individuals had guns. Not interested in reliving Nazi Germany led by the same sociopathic homosexuals and bisexuals.

What the author fails to mention is how the free market and prisons will provide all the answers she and her family can have access to.

#GovernmentIsNeverTheAnswer

No conservative would say that. The government has legitimate functions, which are those that protect individual rights. If it is necessary for the government to run prisons or mental hospitals to do that, then it should.

I would be willing to have my Second Amendment rights abridged ONLY if the liberals will agree to have their First Amendment rights abridged.

So, the First Amendment doesn’t mean anything to you?

Not interested in reliving Nazi Germany led by the same sociopathic homosexuals and bisexuals.

What the author fails to mention is how the free market and prisons will provide all the answers she and her family can have access to.

Maybe I am missing something here, but didn’t the government with ACLU go overboard in making sure that the mentally ill were released to care for themselves?

The free market is just fine for those who can afford to pay for mental health solutions and fight off the public advocacy lawyers who circle them like vultures over wounded and dying prey. (Think: John Edwards.)

Unfortunately, too many parents are forced to wait for overt actions of their troubled kids before prison becomes an albeit lousy option.

We had years of “lunatic asylums” where people who were “problems” to their families were locked away. What we (society) ended up doing was to close down the resource rather to repair it.

Mental health problems are easy to satirize as Ken Kesey (himself mentally unstable) did in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and the public loves a “victim”.

But the #GovernmentIsNeverTheAnswer is a form of lunacy.

There is no anarchy party in this country. At the same time Progressives seem to never see a reason to reassess and correct their government errors and foolishness, unless it somehow involves the military.

I offer Major Hasan as a “workplace violence” subject as a case in point.

Way to change the subject, VS. I will take that action as an indirect ‘no’ to my earlier questions.

- “Is, or is not, the random shooting of children an evil?” – You probably know on some level that it is, but can’t quite bring yourself to call it that.
- “Did, or did not, Adam Lanza make an evil choice?” – You can’t bring yourself to say he did.
- “Regardless of the validity of the excuses (i.e. the possibility that the perpetrator might not be mentally competent and meaningfully able to choose), can you, or can you not, allow an evil to be named as evil, before you seek to excuse [the perpetrator, corrected at #31]?” – Guess you can’t.

Asperger’s syndrome has nothing to do with a “lack of conscience.”

Correct. Conceded. BUT: shooting 20+ people (something NOT synonymous with Asperger’s; and you, VS, insult Asperger’s sufferers everywhere if you want to suggest otherwise) just might have to do with a lack of conscience, or an evil will. Just might.

“45.If they ever have a national discussion on violence, three persons who should be part of the discussion will not be invited; a priest or bishop, a minister and a rabbi. Political correctness has allowed moral values to be pushed aside so that in the name of free speech, censorship no longer is applied to movies, televison programs, and video games. We, as a society, have become insensitized. Criminal have more rights then victims. Situations like Newtown and Aurora awaken a spark of sensitivity to horror. ”

Done on purpose to destroy our social fabric:

“To further the advance of their ‘quiet’ cultural revolution – but giving us no ideas about their plans for the future – the School recommended (among other things):

1. The creation of racism offences.
2. Continual change to create confusion
3. The teaching of sex and homosexuality to children
4. The undermining of schools’ and teachers’ authority
5. Huge immigration to destroy identity.
6. The promotion of excessive drinking
7. Emptying of churches
8. An unreliable legal system with bias against victims of crime
9. Dependency on the state or state benefits
10. Control and dumbing down of media
11. Encouraging the breakdown of the family
One of the main ideas of the Frankfurt School was to exploit Freud’s idea of ‘pansexualism’ – the search for pleasure, the exploitation of the differences between the sexes, the overthrowing of traditional relationships between men and women. To further their aims they would:

• attack the authority of the father, deny the specific roles of father and mother, and wrest away from families their rights as primary educators of their children.
• abolish differences in the education of boys and girls
• abolish all forms of male dominance – hence the presence of women in the armed forces
• declare women to be an ‘oppressed class’ and men as ‘oppressors’
Munzenberg summed up the Frankfurt School’s long-term operation thus: ‘We will make the West so corrupt that it stinks.’”

ILC, If you were the only person on GP that has used the free market argument, than I referenced you specifically by accident. But, I think I’ve heard it from others. And, if I haven’t, it seems to be one supported by many on here (i.e. government is not the answer for dealing with mental health issues). If I’m wrong, please advise.

You’ve made assumptions about me that are incorrect and insulting to me in the past (judging from your words: correct and justified to you, however), so, as a general rule, I don’t consciously engage you, directly or indirectly, because I don’t think you understand where I’m coming from, but you think you do. If you were in my shoes, you might feel the same way. I try to express my opinion as best as I know how and deal with the argument at hand.

So, you can take “that action as an indirect ‘no’” to your earlier questions, but, as far as I’m aware, it is not. It’s safe for you to assume that I don’t engage you anymore on these boards. I think I’ve mentioned it in the past, but maybe I wasn’t clear enough. I hope you understand.

I didn’t really want to write this post, because I’m making it about “me,” but I don’t know how else to respond when someone assumes I’m addressing them. How would you respond if you were in my shoes? Just curious.

In the US mental health involuntary commitments are very difficult to get. In several other countries the standard for a commitment is lower.

Also, if we are spending the money to send the mentally ill to prison, we might as well create mental health insitutions instead.

While I don’t think every mentally ill person should be institutionalized, I do think mentally ill people, whose illness presents as dangerous to themselves or others, should be required to participate in treatment and committed if they refuse.

Most families of the mentally ill want and seek help, but find roadblocks built up all over the place. Getting help for a loved one who is spiraling out of control is hard, and often the help doesn’t come until after the mentally ill person has harmed somebody.

Additional, yes, I did a piss-poor job with Post #3 when responding to Richard Bell’s use of the word ‘sociopath.’ I did not intend to offend those living with Asperger’s. I obviously didn’t know what I was talking about. And I apologize to anyone who took offense.

- “Is, or is not, the random shooting of children an evil?” – Yes.
- “Did, or did not, Adam Lanza make an evil choice?” – I don’t know what was going through his head but, if he did have a capacity to choose good or evil despite his Asperger’s, then he made an evil choice.
- “Regardless of the validity of the excuses (i.e. the possibility that the perpetrator might not be mentally competent and meaningfully able to choose), can you, or can you not, allow an evil to be named as evil, before you seek to excuse [the perpetrator, corrected at #31]?” – I can. I, VS, concede that Dan was right to title his post, “Evil in Connecticut”.

The anti gun mob is going to have to admit to it’s self that we have a 2nd amendment that gives every citizen the right to choose gun ownership or not. We have already decided that the mentally ill and criminals forfeit their 2nd amendment right and almost every state require permits and saftey course training. Only until such time as the anti gun mob accept our 2nd ammendment right can we move on to real solutions that work instead of bad laws stemming from kneejerk reactions that only punish responsible gun owners.

Abridge does not mean eliminate. It means shorten. In other words I would accept a certain amount of gun control if the liberals would accept censoring movies, tv programs, and video games to be sure that they don´t glorify violence. Andhow about a more civil discourse from the radical left?

Roberto > “liberals would accept censoring movies, tv programs, and video games to be sure that they don´t glorify violence.” Media, especially video games, are too violent these days. I’m not aware of any one political group against such censorship. Wasn’t it Tipper Gore who was anti-violent-lyrics in rap songs?

Please clarify what you are saying here. It seems like you are saying that people with Asperger’s are less able to choose between good and evil, which isn’t the case at all.

VS asked me how he could have answered my question. I was offering him an answer that he might have made, trying to work slightly within the framework of his comments which seem to suggest that Asperger’s makes you less able to choose between good and evil.

Can we please debate the merits of impressing the concept of Hell as any kind of comfort?

What form of New Age psychobabble would this be?

If the author wishes to debate whatever that sentence means, I know of no reason why he should not. But know this: Hell is not a concept except to those who know no faith. In theology or creation myth, Hell has never, ever been offered in any way shape or form as a place of “any kind of comfort.”

So, that leaves the matter of debating the “merits of impressing” the “concept” of Hell for any reason whatsoever.

“But, on the other hand, Uncle Abner said that the person that had took a bull by the tail once had learnt sixty or seventy times as much as a person that hadn’t, and said a person that started in to carry a cat home by the tail was gitting knowledge that was always going to be useful to him, and warn’t ever going to grow dim or doubtful.”

Tom Sawyer Abroad by Mark Twain

Throughout mythology, tribal stories, literature, folklore, religion and all the rest there have always been clear warnings of the fate of those who choose the wrong path. Never was the purpose to cause or give heightened comfort. The very opposite was and is the purpose.

Beyond this totally obvious and age old common sense answer, I do not know what else to say about “debate(ing) the merits of impressing the concept of Hell as any kind of comfort.”

However, if this is some sort of political correctness plea to ban “Hell” from the public square, then color me stunned.

This whole thing sucks. Sorry for the families. Sorry for the country. Sorry for everyone. This goes beyond evil and is just derangement.

As a person who is a critic of Obama, I must say its moments like this where he does a good job. He has an ability to connect with people on a personal level and his comments and presence is top notch. For me his comments are touched with real emotion and he is able to speak to the families involved in this tragedy for the whole country with words that I would say to them.

Create chaos and the people will scream for a savior, a man or a group of men to restore order (Capitalism destabilized, then the tools ask for a socialist government to fix the economy, to stop all violence, to make everyone equal).

As a person who is a critic of Obama, I must say its moments like this where he does a good job.

The hell he does. Unless everyone on Twitter is making sh*t up, he is using their memorial service (I think that is what it is), which he is attending and giving a speech at, to call for more gun control. In other words, he is politicizing it. If you weren’t aware of this, your comment is probably understandable (although I haven’t actually seen any of these comments by Obama, so who knows), but it is certainly not true.

Hell, defined at its most basic level, is complete separation from God.

It’s quite easy to see how this could be; as our country has drifted further and further from God, it’s become more violent and more dysfunctional.

At some point, we need to admit that this forty year experiment of replacing Judeo-Christian values with secular humanist values (self-gratification, situational ethics, welfare state) has been a disaster.

There is a wonderful fresco on the walls of the ancient city chambers in the picturesque Italian city of Siena. The leaders saw the benefits of good government on one wall and the results of bad government on the opposite wall. This was translating the Christian theme of good and evil and Heaven and Hell into an allegory that charged the secular leaders with the responsibility of virtue in their governing. The bold warning of the tyranny of fraud, vice and corruption that lead to Hell on earth where morality is dead and violence and depravity rule was ever present in the chambers.

It is likely the first such allegory removed from the usual religious instruction found in churches to be made as a warning to those in temporal power.

Our Progressives likely can not quite grasp this whole concept. It is, in fact, quite “comforting” to know the correct path and at least “useful” to be reminded of the results of taking the wrong path.

I don’t think he s politicized it. He does say this though:
In the coming weeks, I’ll use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens, from law enforcement, to mental health professionals, to parents and educators, in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this, because what choice do we have? We can’t accept events like this as routine.
Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard?
Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?

But he also says:
We know that there were other teachers who barricaded themselves inside classrooms and kept steady through it all and reassured their students by saying, “Wait for the good guys, they are coming. Show me your smile.”

And we know that good guys came, the first responders who raced to the scene helping to guide those in harm’s way to safety and comfort those in need, holding at bay their own shock and their own trauma, because they had a job to do and others needed them more.

And then there were the scenes of the schoolchildren helping one another, holding each other, dutifully following instructions in the way that young children sometimes do, one child even trying to encourage a grownup by saying, “I know karate, so it’s OK; I’ll lead the way out.”

As a community, you’ve inspired us, Newtown. In the face of indescribable violence, in the face of unconscionable evil, you’ve looked out for each other. You’ve cared for one another. And you’ve loved one another. This is how Newtown will be remembered, and with time and God’s grace, that love will see you through.

“You and Levi can stroke yourself to Obama all you want. I have no use for the POS.”

Please don’t be so offensive. Seriously. No need for that. Let go of your hate and be sad, mourn and pray to whomever you want that his words helped at least some of the families show that the whole country crys with them.

When Obama says, “We can’t tolerate this anymore. These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change.”, watch out cuz more freedom/liberty and maybe even the 2nd amendment will be taken away. Obama is an evil man.

Obama is a cold calculating leftist who is determined to punish this country, especially the successful conservative white people who are responsible for it’s past transgressions. Basically, Obama is a hater just like the “educators” you find in Columbia, NYU and most every other “hall of learning” in this country these days. He doesn’t believe in the bill of rights declaratrion of independence or the constitution.

I am still not convinced that the problem is gun-control…or it’s lacking. Nor am I convinced that the problem is even good-vs-evil and the religious/moral vacuum of political-correctness.

The real problem is the 24-hr pornographic repetition and sensationalism of these stories that encourage the next “nut” with a grievance or the urge to go out in a blaze-of-glory to shoot-up a shopping mall or a school so that he’ll be remembered. Want to go from an insignificant insect to the topic of all national media and the President of the United States for days…and be written about, you face in the papers, be the main topic on all teh Sunday-morning talk shows, be the subject of yet-another Michael Moore award-winning pseudo-documentary…shoot up a mall or a school.

It’s the MTV generation’s battle-cry, “…I want to be famous for being a nothing!!”

It’s the Kardashians…

It’s the flatulent idiots of “Jackass”…

It’s the cheered-on morons on Jay Leno’s “Jaywalking” reviling in their inability to identify George Washington, Mt. Rushmore, or when the War of 1812 was… And their relatives in the audience and at home breathlessly, “…my daughter’s going to be on the Tonight Show” proudly-applaud. Rather than slinking home embarrassed at their publicly-displayed failure as parents.

Stop talking about it…drop it in a deep hole and ignore it…and just maybe people will just go back to quietly blowing-their-brains-out, or parking in the garage with the car running, instead of competing for who can get the most coverage and hours of drooling attention by the 24-hr MSM spreading their name across the planet like they were someone important.

Short of banning all guns and confiscating them, there is no way to stop mentally ill people from killing other people with more gun control laws.

The country should focus more on creating a better safety net for the mentally ill and those who care for them.

Also, I think on some level we need to accept that sometimes people do evil things and there isn’t a way to prevent them. I think that is the hard part because our first instinct is to try to figure out a way to prevent it from happening in the future.

There’s much discussion of treatment for the mentally ill. The shooter lived with his mother, an apparent avid gun enthusiast. How would he have gotten treatment? Treatment for what, living with his mother who is a gun enthusiast? Is it reasonable to expect that most parents are in a position to detect mental illness, let alone realize that there is something wrong with their child — wrong enough to seek treatment (thus implying something wrong with their parenting, a difficult hurdle for many parents)? These things happen at random. No one predicted the Aurora, Co. shooting nor the Portland, Or. shooting. How does a free society that allows freedom of movement, association, speech, etc. treat its mentally ill in order to deter heinous, evil acts and remain free? It doesn’t.

Please don’t be so offensive. Seriously. No need for that. Let go of your hate and be sad, mourn and pray to whomever you want that his words helped at least some of the families show that the whole country crys with them.

HUH? mike, are you saying that people can’t walk and chew gum at the same time?

You tie disliking the president and his duplicity and his serpent’s tongue with the ability to be sad and mourn and pray “to whomever you want”?

Those of us who are disgusted to the skies with this POS President manipulator and serial liar are then charged by you as being resentful and hateful that his words might have “helped at least some of the families.”

mike, you are disgusting. You tie your idol worship as a condition to being politically correct in mourning the victims, dead and living, of this tragedy.

The duplicity of your statement is palpable and mean spirited.

When Holder and Obama confess their sins in attempting to politically manipulate the public opinion through their idiotic “Fast and Furious” fiasco gone diabolically tragic, then I will consider the option of grace.

You moral relativists and adherents to situation ethics are firmly footed in the quicksand you promote and adore. When you come to lecture, you do so with your bare ass hanging out for all to try to ignore.

We can have a mental illness detective squad that attempts to head off the disaster before it happens, but at what cost to privacy and what level of success?

Naturally, the fascists would hardly balk at holding everyone with more than one gun and six bullets in the suspicion database. Eric Holder has already taken the Patriot Act to unimaginable heights when it comes to data bases. It is never over the top to question the function of government data bases on individual citizens. Anyone who has a passing understanding of Nazi Germany, the KGB, the Stasi and even the FBI should know why. (I mention the FBI because of the 300 FBI raw data files that went missing when Clinton entered the White House and called for them.)

Joe Lieberman has called for a select committee on mass murders and I support his idea. Immediately, Dick Durbin pronounced that no such committee would be impaneled unless it includes a study of gun control. There you have it. Lieberman makes a generalized open suggestion and Durbin is fast and furious with his “provisos” which are more like brass knuckles than a handshake. Wouldn’t a select committee on mass murders look at guns in the process of analyzing incidents that all occurred with guns as the murder weapon?

We are fast becoming a nation of ideologues where critical thinking is hammered down and warped into uselessness by preconceived political postures concerning what must be on the table and what must be kept off the table. (Sandy Burglar went so far as to destroy evidence in his politically motivated quest to shield Bill Clinton.)

So, indeed, who watches the watchers when the watchers are predisposed to cover their butts first?

I agree with you 100%. I threw it out there because I reasonably certain the left, especially the radicals, will insist on no limits on the First Amendment yet they want to repeal the Second. They want to to continue to repress conservatives yet won´t even self control or slf censor their discourse to be civil instead of angry and vicious. . Access, http://www.freedomoutpost.com. The lead article on the 15th and it´s still in the 16th is that the left advocated KILLING David Keene, President of the NRA and NRA members, of which I am one. How many advocated killing President George W. Bush? If a conservative advocated wasting Obama there would be the FBI at that person¨s door in a flash. The article publish a number of tweets all advocating killing NRA members in such vile and vicious language. I suppose gun control comes after having killed us off.

I love my First Amendment rights and I love my Second Amendment rights. I´ll be damned if I will let any leftist deny me either or both.

Teachers, airline pilots, college students who diplay sound minds, should carry arms. The most dangerous places are gunfree zones. The left can´t get through their thick heads, guns don´t kill, people kill. I live in El Salvador, one of the more dangerous places. My ex, a younger person, for lack of emplyment decided to enter the police academy. Three months prior to graduating, on a Friday he went out drinking and while buzzed he told a couple of gangbangers, he apparently knew, what he was. They took him a dark spot and killed him. Not with a gun, nor knives, but rocks. Nobody ever suggests controlling knives, and how do you control rocks? When an evil person has a desire to kill, denied a firearm, they will use whatever, be it a knife, or a baseball bat.

Gun control shouldn´t even be a topic. it´s a problem of mental health. People with severe mental problems need to be separated from society for the good of society and their own welfare. The ACLU is so opposed to keeping these people in mental hospital. We need more mental hospitals and mental health specialists.

There’s much discussion of treatment for the mentally ill. The shooter lived with his mother, an apparent avid gun enthusiast. How would he have gotten treatment? Treatment for what, living with his mother who is a gun enthusiast? Is it reasonable to expect that most parents are in a position to detect mental illness, let alone realize that there is something wrong with their child — wrong enough to seek treatment (thus implying something wrong with their parenting, a difficult hurdle for many parents)? These things happen at random. No one predicted the Aurora, Co. shooting nor the Portland, Or. shooting. How does a free society that allows freedom of movement, association, speech, etc. treat its mentally ill in order to deter heinous, evil acts and remain free? It doesn’t.

The homeless guy hallucinating on the park bench will be spotted and blanketed with “universal healthcare coverage.”

You see, if you lead or shove a person to “universal healthcare coverage” the state can force him to be cured of what the state determines as inconvenient to social justice.

Let’s talk about executing people with STD’s as a start. The state already supports killing Down Syndrome critters and masses of cells that infest the wombs of women who suffer from Disgusting Inconvenience Syndrome.

What should we do with a mother that does not turn her kid in for “universal healthcare coverage?” If she has guns, lock her up and amputate her trigger fingers.

Yeah, now I understand.

Hey, little fascist, here is another bumper sticker for you: Not guilty by reason of Political Correctness. (Really, you need such a disclaimer for consistently oversimplifying the concepts such as water being wet.)

San Francisco has paid at least $150,000 for Kenny Walters in the past year. He isn’t employed, has an arrest record as long as his hair, and can often be found passed out in a doorway on Haight Street.

Kenny Walters’ job is to get drunk.

In short, Levi, we’re already paying for their “healthcare coverage”.

And it isn’t fixing sh*t.

That’s because it won’t and it can’t. Liar Levi supports and endorses unlimited welfare and absolute legal immunity from anything for the mentally ill because, frankly, they’re easier to purchase and manipulate into voting for the Obama Party.

So they shoot up classrooms every couple of months or so. Levi thinks that’s a small price to pay for a ready supply of votes for the Obama Fascist Party.

What does it say about someone who, after the slaughter of so much that is innocent, posits that we must now slaughter our liberty?

Comment by Ignatius — December 17, 2012 @ 3:24 pm – December 17, 2012

It says, Ignatius, that Levi and his Barack Obama Party think they have their Reichstag fire.

I think people are finally starting to realize that Levi, Passing By, and concern-troll mike are positively salivating at the thought of and demanding that Dear Leader Obama rule dictatorially in the name of “safety”.

At this stage, you can’t explain to cultists that what they are doing is dangerous. They’re not mentally capable of recognizing it. All they see is that people they don’t like will get punished. That’s all they’ve wanted ever since Obama came along. These are the rank-and-file Nazis who were all too happy to see the Jews pushed out and removed as competition and who were all too eager to denounce their enemies to the SS. They cannot see themselves being deprived of their own freedom because they are too blinded by the insane rage and joy of depriving others.

Once again, it’s worth pointing out that other developed, western countries provide healthcare, in a variety of forms, at lower costs, toa greater percentage of their populations, and with better health results. So I guess you think everyone in Europe has had their liberty slaughtered?

A universal healthcare system would give us a much better shot at identifying people with mental health issues and getting them help.

How? Why? What are you assuming here? We have the world’s leading drug research and development and our universities and specialty clinics/hospitals produce more medical breakthroughs than all the socialized medicine medical workhouses combined.

Can you be equally as mocking and condescending if we remove your very convenient qualifiers?

Convince us that no person will be denied any service by universal healthcare on the basis of age or other conditions that the same person would not be denied if he paid for it himself.

Where does forced abortion come from? Link to the protests that universal health insurance scares people because of looming forced abortions.

Why the rhetoric of crushing the religious freedom of Catholic Bishops? Methinks the little fascist doth protest too much. Suffice it to say, all selective abortions that are optional are against Roman Catholic doctrine and principle and a decent respect to the beliefs of the church requires that those sacred beliefs be honored under the First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom. You Progressives want to have your separation of church and state as a one way street only by which the church is shunned from the state and the public square. Sorry, little fascist, but that dog won’t hunt.

other developed, western countries provide healthcare, in a variety of forms, at lower costs, toa greater percentage of their populations, and with better health results.

Good stinking golly. You simply can not back this statement up. Therefore, you cut to the chase and just make it a sweeping little fascist “fact” like man-made global warming and all the convenient to your ideology theories emanating from the penumbra of Darwin and other lazy in the intellect clap trap.

The 2012 Legatum Prosperity Index which has ranked the countries of the world by wealth and wellbeing has dropped the US out of the top ten countries in terms of prosperity, but ranks United States ranks #2 (behind Luxembourg) in terms of health.

While I place no ultimate faith in any particular study, I believe that the Legatum Institute ranks somewhere in stratosphere level measurements above the fulminations of the little fascist.

Levi wrote: ¨. . . western coutries provide healthcare, in a variety of forms, at lower costs to a greater percentage of their populations, with better health results. ¨Oh really? Why is it when they need life saving operations they come to the United States to have the proceedure done? they had been of a waiting list. similar to the old Soviet Union, If you wanted or needed to change apartments, people were put on a waiting list, that took several years before the applicant´s name finally reached the top of the list. Being on a waiting list for operations is the norm in Great Britain and Canada. The cost of healthcare is among the items that cause the problems in Greece. Lower Cost? You gets what you pays for!!

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